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Green Party of BC gets screwed… again.

The Green Party of Canada and their provincial lesser groups have never been good at politics. Even in the early days the Greens had difficulty agreeing on core principles. Were they an environmental movement or just a bunch of unemployed pot heads who wanted their feelings heard?

During the 2015 federal election hopes were high that the Green Party could win seats in the House of Commons but to date, only Elizabeth May from the Vancouver Island riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands managed to round up enough hippies to cast a ballot.

This humiliating defeat at the hands of the federal Liberals on home turf seemed to stir them into action and by the fall of 2017 the provincial Green Party of BC managed to win three seats in the provincial election.

Remarkably, when the provincial Liberals couldn’t secure a majority, these three seats would give the Greens the power to choose the next government. Finally, for the first time in Canadian history, the Green Party had been invited to the negotiating table. Both the Liberal and the New Democrat parties invited them to dinner and told them how special they were.

They were the king makers and when the opportunity came to negotiate for themselves a role in the government, like for example a cabinet seat or a bigger say in provincial affairs, they fumbled it. They totally shat the bed. The Greens just handed power to the New Democrats and sat at the back of the room with nothing but a promise from the NDP that the Site C dam project, which they apposed would be halted. A position both the Greens and the NDP campaigned on.

But anyone who knows Canadian politics, knows it doesn’t take long for governments to break promises, even to the schleps who helped them win.

Six months after taking power, the NDP broke their promise to the Green Party and chose to continue building the controversial Site C dam that is already six billion over budget and will flood thousands of acres of farm land in the Peace River Valley.

If the Green Party well and truly wished to halt the Site C dam project, all they had to do was call a motion of non confidence, topple the government and trigger new elections but once again, they did nothing. Choosing instead to ‘work with the government’.